Sook Ching

The Sook Ching was a systematic purge of Chinese people in Singapore and Malaya by the Japanese Kempeitai secret police and the Imperial Japanese Army from 18 February to 4 March 1942. The Japanese were aware that the local Chinese population supported the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Japanese generals Tomoyuki Yamashita and Masanobu Tsuji masterminded a purge of the overseas Chinese population. The Japanese targeted China Relief activists, wealthy philanthropists, communists, Chinese immigrants who had arrived after the Second Sino-Japanese War, tattooed men (who were suspected of being loyal to the Triads), resistance members, members of the British-era civil service, and people who possessed weapons, and anywhere from under 5,000 people to 70,000 people were killed in the Sook Ching massacres. In 1966, Japan agreed to pay $50 million in compensation for the massacre.